I could be

It just strikes me, how when we were young, people would often ask, "If you could be anything, what would you like to be?" And I would give "grown-up" answers like, I'd be a doctor or a surgeon, or something complicated sounding to impress grown up folks. But now that I am a grown up, I wonder why noone asks me what I would like to be anymore. Maybe because we just assume, grown ups already have become whatever they had wanted to be when they were small. Or maybe we don't want them to think we need to grow up ourselves. But still I like asking myself that question and sometimes to people I know, who won't get offended. There is a line in the movie, "Memoirs of a Geisha", where Hatsumomo (the elder geisha) was thrown out of the okiya after burning part of it and the voice of Sayuri (the young geisha) could be heard reflecting from the window where she was looking at Hatsumomo walking in the dark streets, fading towards the shadows, a sad symbol of a wasted life. Sayuri's line went,

 " I could be her
Were we so different?
She loved once, She hoped once
I  could be her
I might be looking into my own future."  --- Memoirs of a Geisha

Sometimes when I see an image of a woman in Africa,
with her frail thin hands feeding her child with brown bacteria filled water from a canal,
I say to myself, "I could be her"

When I see a child frantically weeping beside the lifeless body of her mother
just crushed by a big boulder from an earthquake,
"I could be her"

There is a man lying homeless in the streets
with noone beside him but his loyal dog,
"I could be him"

In my walk around the harbor, I often see vendors selling their wares at the steps near the docks.
One time I stopped by and chatted with a nice elderly man who was selling postcard size prints of
his artworks for 2-5 dollars each. I have a soft spot for elder people still "working" to
earn a living and decided I'd buy one of his prints. While I chatted with him, he asked me if I was from Formosa. I said no, but I've heard of it. Why do you ask? He replied, "I'd want to go there someday and see this beautiful mountain (showing me his watercolor in progress of what looked like Mt Fuji)." He looked friendly enough for me to have the courgage to ask, "Is that where you want to be in the future?" He said yes. He wants to paint the mountain. He had been painting since he was a child and never stopped. Now he paints all day with his wife painting watercolors too, beside him. I mentioned that I paint in watercolor too. And he excitedly asked me to bring my work over so he could give me advice if I like. I got curious and asked him where he lived and he pointed his brush out into the harbor. I didn't get where he was pointing at so I asked him again. He pointed out again and this time said, "There in one of those yachts docked on the side". I had to repeat myself as I was clearly astonished, "You live in one of those million dollar yachts docked in the harbor?! Then why are you here painting and selling in the sidewalk when it clearly is so much better to be painting there!" I gasped. And he replied with a chuckle, " I didn't want to spill my paint on the $100,000 teak wood floor." 

What a life that would be, to be painting all day, and selling your work on the sidewalk and going home at night to have dinner in a yacht.

I could be him.